Audio of the sermon is here:

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

            Where are you from? Especially if you’re new on campus, that’s probably a question that you’ve asked a lot, or been asked a lot. Where are you from? It’s one of the first questions we ask someone. But it can mean different things. It might mean, what’s your home town? Or what state are you from? Or it can mean, what’s your family like? What makes you who you are? Where are you from?

            Where someone is from is at the heart of these verses from Luke’s Gospel. Jesus is making His journey to Jerusalem. And if you know the story, you know that that means that Jesus is on His way to suffer, die, and rise from the dead in Jerusalem. He’s on His way to Jerusalem, and someone asks Him, Will those being saved be few? Sounds like a pretty modern question. I’m not sure what brought it up, whether it was something Jesus had said, or just one of those burning questions that we have from time to time. Will there only be a few saved? But, as He so often does, Jesus does not answer the question that is asked; instead, He answers the question He wants us to answer. Not, will those people out there be saved; but, will I be saved? Strive, struggle, strain to enter in through the narrow door. Because many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be strong enough. “Will not be strong enough.” If that phrase isn’t strange enough, listen to what He says: Whenever the Master of the house gets up to close the door, then you will begin to stand outside and knock on the door, saying, Lord, let us in. But He will answer and say, I do not know where you are from. But, Lord, we ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets! I do not know where you are from. Apparently, where you’re from makes all the difference in the world.

            Of course, this is not a particular location, a place, or your earthly family, or your earthly identity. Where you are from is not disconnected from this story that is being told here, of Jesus on His way to Jerusalem. As He goes, He faces more and more opposition. People oppose Him twice for healing on the Sabbath day, and He is both going to Jerusalem and weeping over Jerusalem. And when He questions His opponents about healing on the Sabbath, they were not strong enough to answer Him, the same word that’s used in these verses. So it is clearly connected to the story.

            But it goes further than that. Later, when Jesus clears the temple and is healing and teaching in the temple courts, the leaders of Israel want to know where He gets authority to do all these things. Is He just acting on His own? Who sent Him? Why should He be able to say such things about the temple of God? Where do you get the authority to do such things? And Jesus, again, does not answer that question directly. Instead, He puts the question in terms that require a particular answer. He says, I will ask you one question: John’s baptism—was it from heaven or from God? Recall John’s baptism: it was a baptism of repentance, leading toward the forgiveness of sins that Jesus was bringing. It was a washing in water that marked people who were confessing their sins. It was a washing of preparation, to clear the way for the Lord who was coming. And then, down among those sinners confessing their sins, Jesus appears and He is also baptized by John, to mark Him as the one whom God had sent, the only and beloved Son, anointed by the Holy Spirit as He begins His public work of delivering sinners from sin and death.

            A baptism of repentance unto the forgiveness of sins. A baptism of preparation for the one greater than John, the Lord for whom John was preparing the way. That’s John’s baptism. So, Jesus wants to know, did God send John, or did John just make up something he wanted to do? The opponents of Jesus say, If we say it was from God, Jesus will say, why didn’t you believe him, then? If we say it was from people, then we will have trouble from the people, who believe that John was a prophet. So they say, “We do not know where it was from.” This is the only other time in the Gospel of Luke where that word “from where” is used. They do not know where John’s baptism was from. Which means, they do not know where Jesus is from, because where He is from is where His authority is from, which is God. To that confession, that they do not know where Jesus is from, Jesus makes the same confession of them: I do not know where you are from. If you do not confess Me before men, Jesus says, then I will also not confess you before My Father in heaven.

            They are seeking to enter, but they are not strong enough—because they are seeking to enter the Master’s house by a different way, a different door. Or they are seeking to enter a different house that they call the Master’s house. It is really a rather absurd picture that Jesus gives us here: if the Master gets up at some point to close the door, that means that the door had been open. It will be shut, but it is not shut now. It is not shut here. It is not shut for you. So the picture is of the Master of the house, who has opened His door, and people are just wandering around, blindly, trying to get into windows, or other doors, or trying to get into other houses, that do not belong to the Master. But of course, that is because we are not naturally strong enough to enter. I believe that I cannot, by my own reason or strength, believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him.

            The fact that the door is narrow is not a problem if the door is open! And yet, we make it a problem. Jesus is excluding people! He is keeping people out! He only wants to save a few people! But it is exclusive in this sense: not that He doesn’t want every single person to enter, but in the sense that He is open and offering only Himself to everyone. It is not narrow or difficult because God is mean, or spiteful, or angry, but because people do not want what God freely gives. He appears publicly in the world, gives Himself freely everywhere, speaks His word openly, and people still say, nah, I don’t want that. The narrowness is, in one sense, entirely in our own heads.

            Strive, Jesus says. Struggle. Strain to enter. But the struggle is not in the entering, because being saved is so hard. In fact, it’s impossible for us to do ourselves. But here the struggle comes because everything in your sinful heart, everything in this dying world, every lie of the devil, is to keep you away from Jesus. It is a strain because you are being bombarded by every temptation, every distraction, every possible thing, that might keep you from that door and that house. But God is not silent, hoping, somehow, you might find the door on your own. He sends out His word; He speaks; He says, Here I am! Jesus opens His hands, and the nail prints are there, but He is not dead. He is here, as He has promised. Here I am! The Spirit calls you by the Gospel, enlightens you with His gifts, gathers and keeps you inside the holy house of the Master.   Here: do not just eat in the presence of Jesus; eat His Body and Blood. If you are not yet baptized into the holy name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, what are you waiting for? If you have not yet heard and believed the words of Jesus about what He gives you in the Supper, it would be my great joy to speak with you about it. Because this God knows where you are from. He made you, and He redeemed you, and He called you by name. These words are for you. You have come not to a terrifying place that can be touched, like Mount Sinai, but to Mount Zion, the presence of God; the heavenly Jerusalem, to innumerable angels and archangels and the whole company of the holy spirits of those who have died in Christ; to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to His sprinkled blood, that speaks a better word than the word of Abel.

            You have come to the house of the living God, disguised by this humble church. And in this world it is always disguised. Like at the end of the Chronicles of Narnia, in The Last Battle, where the people are going into a dark and narrow stable, and ending up in the bright light of a new creation. And Lucy says, In our world, too, a stable once contained something bigger than our whole world. Go into the Lord’s house; go in a mile. Further up and further in. Far bigger on the inside than it appears to those outside in unbelief. You will never get to the end of it. And you will join Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all the saints. Where will they come from? From east and west and north and south, to recline at the table of God in His house. Come in, come in.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).

– Pr. Timothy Winterstein, 8/22/25